The thread on industries prompts me to ask a more explicit question.
What industries could we have on a 20 foot X 18 inch, HO scale, shelf layout, in the 1940’s, midwest, with the C&NW as a loose basis?
With a roudy round layout I just went a number of laps and considered that a few miles, I don’t see how that would work P to P.
Grain elevators are the first to come to mind. Have them at one end and along the way to a flour or feed mill at the other.
Stock yards, fuel dealers, farm equipment dealers or manufacturers, lumber yard receiving products, coal fired power plant are some others.
Good luck,
Richard
You should also consider a team track and a fuel dealer. The team track would receive just about any type of freight car and could be switched as often as you like. The fuel dealer could receive hoppers of coal and tankers of fuel oil. Both are common in small towns. Just food for thought…
Chuck
Could be almost anything. The CN&W covered a large territory. Could we be a little more specific about what we mean by midwest?
Are you talking about some smaller agricultural based town, or a larger city or something else?
For instance, Marshalltown, IA, had at least the following shippers in 1948, according to the OPSIG midwest list (http://www.shenware.com/dlindman.html):
Concrete Block works, received Cement, sand and gravel
Continental Oil Co, shipped gasoline, lube oil and oil
Hilleman meat packing, received salt and cardboard, shipped sausage
Hormel Hog Buyers, shipping hogs
Kopel grain, receiving grain doors and coal, shipping corn and soybeans
Marshaltown packing, receivng cardboard and hogs, shiping meat
Marshalltown Syrup and Candy, recieved sugar, shipped beverages
Western Groces Co, received canned good
Wilson Coal Co, received coal
Getting more specific about what type of place you want to model, and then looking at some similar prototype towns would most likely give you some more ideas about what you would like to have on your layout.
Smile,
Stein
The layout I am working on is HO, measures 24" wide and 8’ x 10’ x 5’. It is set in the post depression/pre WWII era, or late USRA. It is an commercial switching layout with a four track fiddle yard at one end. I currently have 21 consignees each with between 1 and 3 car spots. I also have a freight depot with 3 tracks and a total of 12 car spots. There are a couple of team tracks scattered around also. The list I posted in the other thread were most of the industry types I am planning to have on the layout. Since this is an intercity based layout, the trackage is very compressed as it was on the prototype. I have room to run and switch a five car train with a caboose. The prototype (NKP) had runaround space for about 10 cars. Planned operation will be a five car train that leaves the fiddle yard and travels into the switching district. There it sets out the cars in its train and picks up as many as five cars for the return trip to the yard. I am considering this sequence to be a turn and to take one shift. The shift also includes any sorting the crew has to do in the yard to prepare the train for the turn. It also includes generating the paperwork for the turn. The prototype ran three shifts, so my operation will be the same. Three turns equals 24 hours. If you run at the scale speed the prototype did, which was about 5 mph, take the time on each move to allow your model crew members to walk to do the task needed, allow the proper time for brake pumping and direction changing, you will consume a fair amount of time to run a turn. I have used the computer design program to run some turns and it is easy to burn up to an hour per turn. I guess you could say I’m running an 8:1 fast clock, but i’m not using a clock, just doing the operations. I also include removing or adding cars to the fiddle yard to represent arrivals and departures in the operation. Right now, I’m planning on using th
Good point, Stein.
The C&NW conducted operations in: llinois,Iowa,Kansas,Michigan,Minnesota,Missouri,Nebraska,North Dakota,South Dakota,Wisconsin and Wyoming.
The principal operations were conducted in: Illinois,Iowa,Minnesota,Nebraska,SouthDakota,Wisconsin.
So that covers a lot of states and a lot of industries.
Rich
Since the entire CNW operates in the midwest it doesn’t narrow it much down much. It you are in the Dakotas it will be grain and clay, if you are in Iowa it will be agriculture, if you are near a big city (Council Bluffs, Des Moines, Chicago, Kansas City, St Louis) it could be heavy industry. Pretty much any industry other than citrus packing.
Btw - since Bruce seems to prefer fairly concrete examples, and since he was only loosely basing his layout on the C&NW, another option would be to pick another western railroad which is fairly well documented and use that as his town template.
I would suggest having a look at the Green Bay and Western, which served towns in Northern Wisconsin, and interchanged with the C&NW in several places, e.g. in Green Bay, WI and Winona, MN.
You can find an interesting set of industries in their 1943 and 1953 shippers directories here: http://www.greenbayroute.com/industries.htm
Look e.g. at the town of Maplewood (A&W station no 49). It lists 8 customers in 1943:
So trying to picture a track plan inspired on this town, looking west towards the tracks, imagine a mainline running left (south) to right (north) along the front of the layout, a longish siding west of the mainline (towards the rear of the layout) and a spur at the south end of town (possibly curving leftwards out towards the aisle, say from about two feet in from the left end of the layout).
In the front left corner you have Casco Co-Op Oil Co between the mainline and the fascia. Room for a couple of c
And I THOUGHT I was being very explicit[:S]
Thanks to all: and Stein, you amaze me of your knowlege of the US. I grew up on the Chicago to Milwaukee area and I guess that is why I like the C&NW so much.
I want to model anything but a big city.
All your advice is greatly appreciated and will be considered in the new plan.
You could just put in the cliche’ rural industries:
Grain elevator
Coal and lumber dealer
Oil dealer
Freight house
Team track and dock
What do YOU want to have on your layout? If you only want open top hoppers then suggesting a meat packing plant won’t accomplish your goals. If you want to run reefers then putting in grain elevators and a coal dealer won’t accomplish your goals.
You have given us a very broad brush. For example, on the MP I can pick three points each less than 100 miles from each other, one will be mostly chemical and industrial, one pulpwood and a third cement and aggregates. Any of them would be “not a city” in the 1940’s, but completely different flavors of industries and locale.
What do you want on your backdrop? Corn fields? Grass lands? Trees? Snow capped mountains? (the last one was trick, that means you have to pick another railroad).
Between Chicago and Milwaukee, CNW…
How about Kenosha, with the Nash-AMC auto plant? Grade separation downtown, commuter trains (the 60’ cars used are available), the quarry nearby, etc?
Racine, with other factories (Case farm implements come to mind), MILW interchange possibly, etc.
And for CNW: New Line or Old Line?
The city areas are going to have relatively more congested areas with more track packed in, modelable arrangements, while the towns out in the country have a bit more room to spread out.